*religion in this case is religion as a monolithic thing, not specifically one religion or another but just the idea of it at all.
My sister topic to:
theists attack atheism because they are insecure
So before I ragged on the theist tendencies about atheism, but oh no I'm not done yet! Now you see atheists are no saints either. They often do things just as bad in terms of intellectual honesty. Making strawmen and the like. I wasn't able to really think of a lot to say about what atheists say about theism, so I thought I would focus on what I am, since I previously said I'm neither an atheist or theist; but a religious person.
The biggest thing for me, many atheists like to act as if all religions are fundamentalist Christianity. And when they see that none of those arguments work against my beliefs, eventually just refuse to listen to any suggestion that maybe we have common ground and just insult religion as if it was some kind of monolithic thing.
What really gets me too, is even when we do find the common ground, they try to claim me as an atheist and say things like I have a "bull**** mythology to comfort" myself. Which isn't true. They miss the nuance, the philosophy, the ethics, ritual and tradition and so much more. Religion isn't just about belief, and what beliefs I do have, are not theistic but that doesn't make them atheistic. There's this nebulous zone called pantheism, although it seems I have some transtheism as well. In either case I view such things as a duality onto itself, atheism and theism.
Despite that it seems a lot of atheists unfairly act as if all religions are equal. I get it though, some religions have done a lot of bad. Two of them make the majority of the world population. But that has more to do with how they spread and their doctrine rather than an inherent quality in religion itself. I think it's important to remember that not all beliefs are equal, and just having a religion doesn't make you irrational, unscientific or illogical. It doesn't make you superstitious. Heck, you don't even need to believe in Supernaturalism to be religious, and I'm just one example.
In short, atheists will often times attack religion just for their personal connotations of it, knowing little or nothing about the beliefs or if they do go and try to learn about it, it will be with the starting point of wanting to disprove it from the get-go and ignore any possibly valid points along the way, something inherently against an intellectually honest thought-process. Could you imagine if scientists just ignored anything that didn't already agree with their hypothesis? We wouldn't of gotten that far if that were the case!
So let me bring this back to the point that many again assume any religious thing is bull****. It's funny though when I bring up say someone like Sam Harris, who's actually seen a lot of good in Jainism and Buddhism. When I've brought this up before I'm told I'm lying or making it up... but then:|
Killing the Buddha (killing the Buddha refers to an actual Buddhist teaching where Buddhists are advised to do that if they ever see the Buddha on the roadside)
Sam Harris Talks Spirituality : Secular Buddhist Association
And yet I've been told things before like Sam Harris would "never support irrational, superstitious bull****". Funny how these kinds of people seem to not be familiar with some of Sam Harris's work neither know anything about more eastern types of religions.
However Sam Harris I would say is very critical of religion but not of all things religious. He's well educated, and looked at many different religions with an objective eye. I will disagree with him on some ways he sees these religions but he at least recognizes the valid underpinnings of the traditions. I do agree with him that many are cloaked in too much supernaturalism and superstition, but religion doesn't have to be that way, I'd argue. But at least then from those 2 viewpoints there is a debate to be had that's not making caricatures of eachother.
But only Sam Harris is Sam Harris. Many people who just want to blast at religion I feel are (often rightfully) mad at some very specific religious traditions causing harm in the world. However combine their anger/fear with ignorance of most of religions, and you get a recipe for unfounded disdain or hate.
It's okay for us to disagree, and argue for or against various aspects of religion, so long as we are representing eachother's positions honestly. Trying to characterize one's religion as a more easily defeated one is a strawman, And I'm not okay with that.
